She 'made it' in Pueblo. Will other artists get the same chance?
share
PUEBLO, Colo. — Artist Shannon Palmer has left her fingerprint across the City of Pueblo, where murals bring color to the streets and corners.
“I did not think I was going to be an artist at all," Palmer, 32, said.
She is known around town by her artist name, DeadHand — a moniker inspired by the permanent nerve damage she sustained during a graveyard shift at a data entry job when she was 18.
“They found cyanide and jet fuel in our air vents in the building we worked in,” she said. “I can’t feel my hands since then.”
This limitation fuels Palmer’s vivid style, marked by vibrant colors and skulls, exploring the tension between the vitality of life and the inevitability of death.
Through public art commissions, grants, sales to collectors, and vending, she makes a living as a full-time artist — making almost all of her income in Pueblo. But the future of arts funding is uncertain in Pueblo.
Three nonprofit organizations — the Pueblo Arts Alliance, the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center, and the Creative Consortium of Pueblo — account for a large portion of Pueblo’s arts programming.
Currently, the city provides funding to the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center and the Pueblo Arts Alliance. Both will lose this support in 2026, according to Haley Sue Robinson, the City of Pueblo’s public affairs director.
In 2025, the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center received $100,000 from the city, $200,000 less than the year before. Funding is set to drop to zero in 2026.
The Pueblo Arts Alliance was awarded $15,000 in 2025, $5,000 less than the previous year, and its funding will also be eliminated entirely in 2026.
“The less funding we get, the harder it’s going to be if we’re trying to change the way of Pueblo and forge things in a better way,” said Christina McCann, executive director of Pueblo Arts Alliance.
Located in downtown Pueblo, the organization’s mission is to promote and collaborate in the development of the arts economy in Pueblo. One of their main offerings is affordable art studio space. They rent out 21 studios to local artists within their building. Palmer is among the local artists that rents a studio there, sharing the space with two other artists.
“The goal is always, ‘we’re going to change the reputation of Pueblo.’ The more artists you can bring and make them sustainable, the more growth we’ll have,” McCann said. “But we’re not making them sustainable right now because the funding is limited. The art scene has grown, but it hasn’t grown enough… we need more push to do more for our community.”
Loss of funding may not be the only challenge facing Pueblo’s growing art scene.
According to an article published this month by Pueblo Watch, a new editorial initiative launched by the Pueblo Star Journal, the city's graffiti removal crew painted over several murals along the ARTery, a community-led public art path in downtown Pueblo.
When asked about the incident, the City of Pueblo said it had no comment.
“I wonder if there will be much money to be made here any longer,” Palmer, who has sustained herself as an artist in Pueblo for the past four years, said.
Palmer’s winding path to full-time artistry was marked by tragedy. At 20, while most peers her age were attending college and discovering their career paths, Palmer had to face the devastating reality of her mother’s murder by her stepfather.
“I had a lot of family trauma during those years,” she said. “The process of getting that through court took multiple years, so that was kind of my main focus, and making sure my younger sister was okay.”
In 2016, two years after her mother was killed in her home in Walsenburg, the murderer was convicted and sentenced to life in prison plus 18 months.
Painting became a way for Palmer to process her emotions.
“A lot of times when you go through that level of trauma, a lot just becomes non-verbal and held in your body, so I really do think my art helped me create a safe space for that to come out and start processing," she said.
In 2021, at age 28, she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Colorado State University Pueblo and decided to become a full-time artist.
“It was just a couple of years of ’Okay, I made 60 bucks this weekend, I made 300 bucks this weekend… let’s hope it adds up to the bills,’” she recounted.
In 2022, a major project came Palmer’s way.
Thanks to a Colorado Creative Industries grant, Palmer painted a 100-foot mural on the Arkansas River levee, depicting the 140-year history of Pueblo’s oldest medical institution, Saint Mary-Corwin Hospital. It was one of the highest-paying gigs she had landed up to that point.
“I spent six months of my life working on that piece,” she said. “The levee… it used to be the world’s longest mural. We watched it get destroyed and rebuilt, so I just had this passion to paint that wall.”
Built in 1921 after a devastating flood, The Arkansas River levee became a canvas for local artists. It held the Guinness World Record for the largest outdoor mural from 1995 to 2016, until aging and cracks led to its demolition, wiping out nearly all murals. In October 2021, artists flocked back to the levee, reviving the concrete walls with color through the Pueblo Levee Mural Project, which has been coordinated by Cynthia Ramu since 1992.
Over 100 artists have painted on the Pueblo Levee, and Palmer said she is currently working on her fifth mural there.
She has also been commissioned by local business owners and organizations who have seen her work to paint their walls.
“What makes Pueblo amazing is the creative spirit. There is this energy here that is so incredible that I do believe if we really put our feet down and work hard enough, we could be the next Santa Fe,” she said. “There’s a ton of soul here. A ton of struggle. And it’s just very real.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.